Canadian IT consulting firm CGI has won six-year US$530 million contract to deliver cybersecurity services to US federal agencies participating in the Department of Homeland Security’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation program. The contract follows CGI’s ongoing work on the CDM Phase 2 cybersecurity program.

Montreal-based CGI has been supporting US defense, civilian, and intelligence agencies in their IT strategy and implementation for more than 40 years. Today, through its subsidiary CGI Federal Inc., the leading IT consulting firm provides in-demand services like cloud computing, cybersecurity, and systems engineering to public sector clients in healthcare, defense, and energy, among others.

Now the company has been awarded a huge six-year US$530 million to provide cybersecurity services to several US federal agencies. The task order will have CGI deliver continual enhancements to the ‘cybersecurity posture’ and ‘risk awareness’ of federal agencies taking part in the US Department of Homeland Security’s Continuous Diagnostics and Mitigation (CDM) program, and the Dynamic and Evolving Federal Enterprise Network Defense – Group C (DEFEND C).

The Department of Homeland Security’s CDM program gives the DHS and other agencies the tools to identify cyber risks on a continual basis, prioritizing risks based on impact and enabling staff to solve the biggest problems first. The CDM was established by congress to provide risk-based and cost-effective cybersecurity to federal agencies.The contract was award via an acquisition conducted by GSA FEDSIM, an agency which provides acquisition support to US federal agencies seeking IT systems and services.

CGI will help strengthen the cybersecurity of participating agencies by providing new capabilities and solutions by way of standardized security stacks. The IT consultancy will also provide a centralized view of security risk across federal infrastructure – making it easier to identify and solve the cyber risks at federal agencies.

"As a program, DHS' CDM effort has to be one of the largest cross-agency efforts to secure the Federal Government's IT infrastructure," commented CGI Senior Vice-President Stephanie Mango. "CDM epitomizes the best of the shared services model, and we are delighted by the confidence that GSA, DHS and the Group C Agencies have entrusted to CGI to be part of this historic effort."

The half-billion dollar contract builds on previous CGI work don’t in support of CDM Phase 2 – which collected data on uses connecting to the network of 26 agencies. The ongoing Phase 2 project gives many agencies their first holistic view of their user population. It is set to be completed later this year.

In other government contract news, CGI was recently awarded a €41.9 million contract to build and support an electricity data hub for Finland’s national electricity transmissions operator Fingrid Oyj. The datahub, which will be critical to the functioning of ‘smart’ energy infrastructure, will store and manage data from Fingrid’s 3.5 million energy consumption locations.